The Perfect Photo Suite 8 has a bunch of different modules/plugins that each targeted specific photo editing tasks. All of these plugins work from Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements or just run standalone.

What dawned on me during the presentation was the fact that two of these plugins (Perfect Mask and Perfect Layers) contain the primary features that real estate photographers need that are missing from Lightroom and Aperture. That is, the only things that real estate photographers need to do that they can’t do with Lightroom is sky replacement and layering. It looks to me that with a couple of these relatively inexpensive plugins (inexpensive compared to the on going cost of Photoshop CC) real estate photographers could get by using just Lightroom and the OnOne plugins without needing Photoshop. I am still learning to use these plugins so this is still a speculation, but it looks like a promising speculation at this point. Check Perfect Photo Suite 8 out and see what you think.

11 Responses to “OnOne Plugins May Be A Photoshop Replacement For Real Estate Photographers”

I have been using OnOne for three or four years. Mostly to replace sky. At this point topaz has caught up with OnOne and I am switching because OnOne can sometimes give a very processed look. Topaz has some great new and improved features. Both programs can act as standalone or as plug ins. Don’t forget nik which I still believe gives the best most natural results especially when using their graduated filters, their color cast removal and their ability to turn on lights. And. At the pdn expo in New York we just purchased perfectly clear, a Lightroom plug in that will really pop your images as a plug in for either Lightroom or Photoshop. The point is there is no perfect plug in but as a genre plug ins not only help your workflow but also improve the quality of your output. As usual Larry, thanks for bringing important tools to our attention.

I am not sure Ansel would be rolling in his grave, I suspect he would embrace today’s modern tools which only increase the creativity of the mind and the final result we see as artists. He always said 50% of an image was capturing the image, the other 50% was in the darkroom using the “modern tools” of the time.

Here is a great video that interviews Ansel’s son Michael and he gives a tour of the darkroom etc.

Yeah, I hear ya. And that is a great video. But as the video states, he was the “Master of his Craft.” Today, with all these post production applications, the mastering of the craft happens more after the shot was taken – if at all. Yes, Ansel manipulated a lot in the darkroom, but he was also a pioneer and an innovator to make his work so exceptional.

Time and innovation is the difference for me. And again, I’m not knocking technology. But what took Ansel hours takes me 2 minutes. I guess that’s progress ; )

I really love OnONe, it just runs so slow for me no matter what I do, I end up getting frustrated and just doing everything in Photoshop. I live so close to Portland you would think I would just go there and learn from them whenever I could..ha.

@Justin – how much RAM do you have? I experience no slowness at all with the OnOne Beta, but that’s probably because I have 16Gig of RAM and a SSD drive. Several years ago I just got tired of slowness with photo editing and fixed it. Nothing runs slow with 16gig of RAM and an SSD.

Big problem with the OnOne software suite is they run the Nalpeiron Protec6 software anti piracy software program when you startup your Mac..and no you don’t get a choice about its install either.. This has caused me further problems with ridiculously slow performance and issues with my thunderbolt display, my HDD backup and putting my MBP to sleep.

for 48 Hours I ran the beta version – and it gave me no end of trouble so its now uninstalled, and I won’t be bothering to buy the software. Nik Software apparently used to use the same measures, but to their credit, have long since moved away from it.

@larry May be with the configuration of my time machine back up too ..A system restore after the removal of the Onone software has me back to where I was.. All smooth again now.. It seemed to be a common problem when I went looking for answers via google.

Even though I use Perfect Effects on portraits, it’s still a bit wonky… sometimes it freezes up my machine, and the interface works clunky with the pen tablet (as compared to PS). (like a Galaxy tab vs an Ipad) I think it would slow me down to try to use OnOne as a stand-alone. It’s kinda like how turning the Graphic Processor option to “on” in PS makes it run like poopydoodoo. 🙂

@Charlie It’s actually a concerted effort. You get it as close as possible in camera, then use the software to make up the difference. There is no way for a camera to produce a perfect frame. Even if you go back a few posts on this site, to the post about Julius Shulman images, you can see that he’s doing wonderfully with the equipment he has available, but you can also see the apparent limitations of that same equipment.

The tradeoff is time. It used to take me 6 hours to shoot try to shoot a perfect set of pictures on a 5000 sq ft house, using pack lights, a medium format camera, and a Polaroid back to “chimp”. It cost me $1 for every polaroid frame, and in a house that size, there might have been 30-50 polaroids shot. I still had to learn to print in the color darkroom to get an almost perfect image… there were still lots of flaws I had no idea how to correct.

But now, I can shoot that same 5000sqft house in 1.5 hours, and do all the post work in 1.5hours, for a total of 3… and it’s damn near perfect. No cost for polaroids, no cost for processing… and I’m not sure that my digital equipment costs any more then my analog setup did. Okay, maybe 3 times as much, but I can do 3-4 times the volume with it.

The approach to shooting real estate shouldn’t be much different then anything else. It’s all about a predictable workflow.